Chrome Enterprise Subscription is now available for Chrome OS

August 23, 2017

Google is finally boosting its efforts to bring the Chrome OS to the enterprise market with a new subscription service for large business’s looking to run Chrome OS devices. Called the Chrome Enterprise subscription, the service has been available to general users through Google’s Chrome Enterprise Bundle for IT.

The service is basically a rebranding of Chromebooks for Work but with a number of additional capabilities. The service is priced at $50 per device and year and is made specifically for the Chrome OS and not the Chrome browser as the name may suggest.

The main point to note here is that new subscribers don’t have to worry about their existing infrastructure as it is fully compatible with their existing on-premise Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure. Rajen Seth, Google’s senior director of product management for Android and Chrome for Business and Education, told that this has long been a stumbling block for many enterprises that were looking at adopting Chrome OS devices.

While Chrome OS admins could already enable other services that use the SAML standard to enable single sign-on for Chrome devices, this update will allow enterprise usersto use their existing credentials to log into their Chrome OS devices and access their Google Cloud services with the IT admins managing their access to these devices and services.

Additionally, Enterprises can manage their Chrome OS devices from the same enterprise mobility management solutions they already use, starting with VMware’s AirWatch with support for similar services on the way. Thanks to this, IT admins can set up a managed enterprise app store for their users.